It's not as ridiculously high as the G-flux (see sig) but to some extent it really works that way. Friend of mine even devoted an entire website to it.
Women not losing weight at around 1200kcal/day are advised to up calories by 100 kcal/week and preferably start lifting weights.
A whole LOT of them start losing weight at around the 1500-1600kcal mark.. that's still below their normal maintenance, but more than they used to eat.

They're eating more, but they're burning even more than what they're eating. Nothing magic, or unexpected, about that.

It seems magic to a lot of them.. after all, you'd expect to lose more weight on a bigger (theoretical) deficit , rather than on a smaller (theoretical) deficit.
And this is exactly what happens: they apparently get so lethargic on say 1200kcal/day that upping intake by 400kcal is totally compensated by becoming more active.
Especially when they'd follow the advice to take up lifting weights. But I've read plenty reports from (mostly) women that don't lift wts at all and still see the same phenomenon happening.

Could it be possible that eating a little more actually results in a bigger deficit? I'm not talking Berardi numbers here. What I mean is, could a sharp reduction in cals cause an even greater metabolic slowdown through leptin, thyroid, subconsciously moving less, etc?

It's interesting though that exercise and calorie restriction combined didn't cause the same drop in daily energy expenditure as calorie restriction alone, suggesting that at least some of the drop was caused by reduced activity which was presumably compensated for in the exercise group.